My view: Apologia Pro Michael Davies & Other
Catholics

by:Mario Derksen

The TCR News web site, headed by Stephen Hand, has put up
an article entitled "The
Fall of Michael Davies." It spreads such serious
misinformation about Mr. Davies that I feel it is my duty to
speak out on his behalf.

Residing in London, England, Michael Davies is a great
Catholic scholar who has spent more time defending the
traditional Mass than anyone else. At 673 pages, his book Pope
Paul's New Mass is the most comprehensive critique and
examination of the new rite of Mass ever produced. He has
written countless booklets about the traditional and new rites
of Mass, the modernist crisis in the Church and Vatican II. He
is the author of at least ten books on these and related
topics.His works all reveal a great deal of study and
scholarship and point to an extremely keen intellect. His
books and booklets are published by Roman Catholic
Books, TAN Books, Angelus
Press, the Remnant
Press, and the Neumann Press.

In no way can Mr. Davies be regarded an extremist. He is
very balanced, very sincere and certainly attentive to
constructive criticism. If Davies writes or talks about
something, you can be sure it's been thought through. Such is
my experience of this impressive scholar and his outstanding
work for the traditional Catholic movement.

But you don't have to take my word for it. You can buy some
of Davies' tapes at Keep The Faith, Inc.
and see for yourself (I especially recommend his tape "True
and False Obedience"). He is currently the head of the
papally-approved Una Voce Federation for a
spread of the traditional Mass, and I believe he is friends
with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the Prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Holy Office).

Is The Remnant in Schism?

The TCR site opens its case against Michael Davies by
noting that he will be a speaker at the "schismatic"
Remnant-sponsored forum in October of 2001. The people of the
Remnant--most notably Michael J. Matt (the editor), John
Vennari, A.S. Guimaraes, and Marian T. Horvat are, according
to TCR, "most virulent enemies of the Holy Father." At this
point I must make sure everyboyd--especially Mr. Hand and the
entire TCR crew--understands that there is such a thing called
"slander." You've just witnessed it. Stephen Hand is a former
columnist and collaborator with the Remnant newspaper and he
is now bitterly opposed to them. Talking to Hand about the
Remnant is akin to talking to a former Catholic who is now a
Protestant about Catholicism. Former Catholics are generally
very hostile towards the faith they have abandoned, and it is
nearly impossible to convince them of their error. This is how
it is with Stephen Hand. He is bitterly opposed to his former
friends and their positions, and it is very difficult to have
a reasonable conversation with him about this. To insinuate
that the Remnant's columnists or editor are schismatic is
absolutely beyond comprehension to me. As a regular reader of
the Remnant, I can tell you that these people have nothing but
love for the Holy Father--but theirs is true love--a love
which criticizes when it must, not a fake love that only
affirms whatever the Pope does in order to appear agreeable.
There are times, especially in our day and age, when love
requires that we oppose whom we love when he does wrong. Was
St. Paul full of hate towards St. Peter when he "withstood him
to the face"? (Gal 2:11)? Of course not. TCR's case against
the individuals affiliated with the Remnant will be evaluated
later on in this essay. Schism is a very serious offense and
it must not be hurled at anyone lightly. Disobedience does not
equal schism. Moreover, not all disobedience is sinful, as St.
Thomas Aquinas pointed out many hundreds of years ago.

The fact that Michael Davies will be speaking at a forum
sponsored by the Remnant has raised Hand's considerable ire.
According to TCR, this is part of the "fall" of Mr. Davies
(make sure you read on to see that the accusation of a "fall"
on Mr. Davies' part is totally fictitious). By coming to speak
at the forum, Davies now joins "a nest of would-be bishops or
popes." This inflammatory language is what I refer when I
likened Stephen Hand's attitude to that of a former Catholic.
He is more hostile to what he left than anyone would be who
had never endorsed it before. In a virtual fit, Hand denounces
such great defenders of the faith like Gerry Matatics, Thomas
E. Woods, Christopher Ferrara, and others. Hand castigates
Woods for his youthfulness (ahem, I believe Dr. Woods is
nearing his 30's now) and even calls his Harvard-Ph.D. "window
dressing" (excuse me, Mr. Hand?); Ferrara is degraded because
he opposes a cardinal who "recently went out of his way to
reconcile the SSPX" (but of course, the fact that Cardinal.
Hoyos has tried to reconcile the SSPX has nothing to do with
whether the same cardinal slanders Fr. Gruner, whom Ferrara is
defending) and Matatics is called an "evangelist" (in
quotes!), as if he were not a true and enormously-gifted
evangelist and apologist (you see, Hand can't really crack
down on Matatics concerning education, because Matatics knows
more than Hand will ever learn).

We Resist You to the Face

TCR is especially upset about Davies' coming to the Remnant
forum because some of the Remnant's columnists have recently
published a booklet entitled We Resist You to the Face(the
title being based on Gal 2:11), addressed to the Holy Father,
John Paul II, which raises some serious issues that have
plagued (traditional) Catholics for a long time. Fairness
ought to require one to read this (fairly short) book for
himself in order to analyze what it says and to discern
whether it is justified or not. One cannot judge a book by its
cover--or title!--but this and some isolated quotes are what
Mr. Hand relies on when he tells his readers that the book is
a "schismatic manifesto." All I can say is: read it yourself!
You can order it from the Remnant
Bookstore. [Mr. Hand wrote a response to this, entitled
"Traditionalists, Tradition, and Private Judgment," available
from The Wanderer, which, however, was carefully dissected and
refuted by the Remnant afterwards (read
the whole discourse here).]

The same goes for all the people Hand denounces in his
essay against Davies. You judge for yourself. The only way you
can do that is by reading their writings and/or listening to
their tapes. They are excellent. Hand doesn't mention that he
was invited to debate the very people he's denounced at the
Catholic Restoration Conference earlier this year (2001) in
Phoenix, Arizona--an offer which he rejected. Why did he do
that? Can he only hide behind his web site? The accusations he
makes against these people are very serious.

Hand quotes the following from the book We Resist You to
the Face, as "proof" that the authors (M. Matt, AS
Guimaraes, J. Vennari, and M.T. Horvat) are schismatic: "In
our view a possible future declaration of a sede vacante (the
period of time when the Apostolic See is empty, as a
consequence of the heresy of the Pope) would take place
automatically when the Church would become aware of the
gravity of the present day errors and who is responsible for
them" (Chapter V, #3; p.56). The part Hand didn't quote
follows right after: "Should such a situation not become
public or notorious, the declaration of the aforementioned
judgment would fall to future Pontiffs [Popes]" (ibid.). Both
of these quotes are written under the heading "What this
action [the resistance] does not imply" and are immediately
preceded by the words "The desire to declare that the
Apostolic See is vacant," i.e. their resistance does not imply
this.

Make sure you read at least Michael Matt's defense
of his co-authored work We Resist You to the Face against the
different charges, especially the charge of "schism."

The authors of the work We Resist You to the Face
are not sedevacantists, that is, they do not believe that John
Paul II is not our Pope. In fact, it would be quite absurd to
write him such a lengthy letter, all the while maintaining
that he's not the Pope anyway. What good would it do to
express their impossibility to reconcile some of his actions
and teachings with Catholic truth? The authors are appealing
to him precisely because he is the Pope! The Remnant issues of
September 15 and 30, 2001, by the way, have a lengthy article
in them written by Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S., denouncing
sedevacantism.

Now on to TCR's charge that We Resist You to the Face is a
schismatic work. Hand quotes an unnamed source (very
scholarly!) as saying: "....canon 752 defines schism as 'the
withdrawal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or from
communion with the members of the Church subject to him.' What
one must note here is that the canon does not distinguish
between degrees of withdrawal of submission to the Roman
Pontiff. In other words, one need not completely withdraw
one's obedience to the Roman Pontiff in order to enter into a
state of schism...."

First off, Canon 752 is not a full-fledged treatment of
schism. It merely provides a definition. In fact, I couldn't
find an exhaustive treatment of schism in the entire Code. The
question at issue here is what it means to withdraw submission
from the Supreme Pontiff, the Pope. What characterizes such
withdrawal? When does mere disobedience become schismatic? The
Code doesn't say. But one thing is clear: suspending obedience
is not the same as withdrawing submission. Case in point:
Archbishop Thuc. Archbishop Thuc was a schismatic because he
no longer recognized the Pope's authority, believing the See
of Peter to be vacant and hence withdrawing submission from
Pope John Paul II. On the other hand, Archbishop Lefebvre and
many other Catholics have seen themselves forced to withdraw
obedience in certain matters which, despite pleas to the Holy
Father, they are unable to reconcile with what was taught in
the Church consistently until the death of Pope Pius XII.
These people do not deny that John Paul II is the Pope and
therefore do not withdraw their submission; they merely feel
themselves forced to choose between the traditional Faith and
what at least appears to be novel teachings from John Paul II
(A.S. Guimaraes wrote a lengthy letter to the Holy Father
asking for direction and clarification, which, of course, went
unanswered). Since it is possible that a Pope should teach
novelties without violating the divine precept of the
indefectibility of the Church, there is no reason to insist
that traditional Catholics are committing sin or are even
embracing a state of schism if they find themselves in
resistance with such novel teachings. Such is the difference
between suspending obedience and withdrawing submission. The
one who withdraws submission says that Karol Wojtyla no longer
has any authority over him andthat he is not the Pope. The one
suspending obedience says, "Holy Father, there's just no way I
can reconcile what you've been saying and doing with the
perennial principles of Catholic Tradition." The child who
says to his mother, "I won't!" does not deny she is his
mother.

In any case, let me appeal to you again to read the entire
book We Resist You to the Face (incl. its enlightening
appendices, which make some points clearer) yourself before
making a judgment about whether the authors are guilty of what
TCR accuses them of.

Of Slander and Pseudo-Scholarship

TCR's article continues:

"These men are far from theologically objective and
sober; they are propagandists who sift polls for proof and
the Council and Pope's teachings for proof-texts seeking to
frame and maintain their parallel magisterium, based on an
absurd new twist on an old heresy with new twists, sola
traditio, wherein they demand that doctrinal development, as
we have it in the Council, stop when they say it must (Trent
or Pius X, Pius XII, it depends who you ask ), just as the
Nestorians, Orthodox, Copts, and others set the mark at
other historical points, tragically sundering the universal
Church in many areas of the world. But while the latter are
theologically informed and more serious, Davies' friends are
theologically untrained in Catholic orthodoxy, laymen who
now make a living by beguiling the widow of her mite under a
pretext of piety and cynically selective quotes."

This is absolutely ridiculous! If his opponents were really
mean, I imagine they could sue Stephen Hand for such character
assassination. I don't think I have ever seen this much ad
hominem, totally unsubstantiated with no reason given by Hand
to believe this is true. Mr. Hand knows--should know--better
than this! Everyone who disagrees with him is now a
"propagandist" (what an empty term!) with "a pretext of piety"
(the common term is "hypocritical") and "theologically
untrained," having "anachronistic Gothic, Baroque, Tridentine
daydreams." At least ever since his defection from the
traditional Faith, Stephen Hand has loved to use
fancy-sounding terminology. I will not speculate as to why he
likes to style his articles with such terms, but they
certainly don't add an iota of scholarship to what he writes.
He was invited to debate traditionalism at the Catholic
Restoration Conference '01 and didn't accept; he likes to hide
behind his computer screen, preferring to hurl defamatory
comments at those who disagree with him. In principle, there
is nothing wrong with not wishing to engage in live debates (I
don't like that myself either), as long as you can make a
coherent case against your opponent and refrain from throwing
unnecessary defamatory language at him. Instead of making
vague general accusations against his former traditionalist
friends, Hand should simply put up articles that, very
methodically (a la the Summa Theologica) first quote his
opponents' assertions and then disprove them with his
counter-evidence. That is a concrete way of debating. That is
a fair and honest way, and a format that people can appreciate
and understand. Yet Hand chooses to simply make gratuitous
assertions, which can be, of course, quite as gratuitously
denied. He does this also when it comes to Una Voce, the
papally-approved organization, and Bill Basile, who is, to my
knowledge, the web master of http://www.diocesereport.com/myview/www.unavoce.org
Will it ever change? Who knows.....

In the meantime, I'll tell you one thing:

The only way for you to know whether TCR is right or the
people being attacked (Davies, Matt, Guimaraes, Woods,
Ferrara, etc.) are, listen to their tapes and read their
books. These people do not harp on their intellectual
achievements. They present evidence, arguments and a
conclusion. That's what counts. Age doesn't matter, degrees
don't matter, any other background doesn't matter. The only
thing that matters is whether their arguments support their
conclusions. And that this is so was wonderfully
demonstrated by the Remnant's fight with the Wanderer about
Stephen Hand's accusations.

Further along in his essay against Michael Davies and other
traditionalists, Hand takes some more general shots at Davies,
which again, are completely gratuitous and without backup.
Funny how, when talking about people like Woods or Matt, Hand
attacks their "youth" (as if that had anything to do with
their traditionalism), but when it comes to Davies, all of a
sudden it's the "mentor" (Lefebvre) that accounts for his
stance, not the age. It stands to reason--Hand being younger
than Davies, he can't use the "youth" argument. It seems that
when a traditionalist is young, Hand will use that against
him, as opposed to being consistent and castigating those who
disagree with him on the basis of a lack of evidence or a
misunderstanding of Catholicism on their part (or whatever
else Hand thinks he could bring forward against them).

Michael Davies, the SSPX, and the Imaginary "Fall"

Of course Hand mentions Michael Davies' connections to the
Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), though Davies has distanced
himself a bit since Fr. Scott, with his extreme views, has
taken over the role of District Superior in the United States.
Michael Davies has many of his books and booklets published or
distributed by Angelus Press, the house publisher of the SSPX,
and has defended Archbishop Lefebvre in three volumes (whose
content ranges from 1905-1982). On the other hand, Davies has
argued against Fr. Scott that the new rite of Mass is not, and
cannot be, intrinsically evil (see The Great Debate of
'98, available from the Remnant
Bookstore), and has written the book I Am With You Always,
exposing seven errors common in traditionalist circles that we
must refrain from falling into (one of them being
sedevacantism).

The point: Michael Davies is a man interested in truth. If
he were interested in being in agreement with the SSPX, he
would not have opposed Fr. Scott on the status of the new
Mass. If he were interested in being in agreement with all of
his fellow traditionalists, he would not now be opposing A.S.
Guimaraes in the Remnant about the status of the Vatican
document Dominus Iesus. I have experienced Michael Davies in
his writings, on audio tape, and on video tape. To me, there
is no question that this man loves truth. Sometimes, we all
know, truth is convenient--but usually it is not. This being
said, it is clear to me that if Davies does not renounce
something he's written before, it is because he still endorses
it. This seems incomprehensible to Stephen Hand, who points
out that Davies still hasn't recanted his previous positions
(TCR calls them "errors"). But why would he, if he still
endorses the same positions? TCR betrays the belief that
somehow, somewhere along the way, Davies changed his
positions. Otherwise, it makes no sense for them to wonder why
he hasn't yet stopped publication of his books by Angelus
Press and such like. Yet, at the same time and quite
ironically, TCR answers its own question by maintaining that
Davies "has been steadfast in the errors of Lefebvrism." AH!
So if that's the case, why be surprised that he has now joined
"a nest of would-be bishops or popes"? Why the surprise that
Davies has not broken with the SSPX? In fact, why even
describe the whole article as a "FALL" of Michael Davies, if
he's been espousing the same positions for decades now? A
"fall" implies a fall from something. In this context, one
would suppose this to be a fall from orthodoxy. But according
to TCR, Davies never was orthodox to begin with! He's been
writing for the Remnant since 1972! Why then, does TCR make it
seem like his association with the Remnant is something new?

Something is fishy here. The fact of the matter is that
Michael Davies is not espousing any errors. His positions are
thought through and orthodox. Mr. Davies is the first one to
be happy to address any scholarly criticism one might have
against what he says. I suspect that if Stephen Hand were
willing to write a letter to Davies challenging his views, Mr.
Davies would respond, and the Remnant would probably be happy
to print the exchanges. Deal, Mr. Hand?

We can now move to the final part I wish to address: the
debate Davies had with E. Michael Jones.

Michael Davies vs. E. Michael Jones in '93: Is the SSPX in
Schism?

In 1993, Michael Davies and E. Michael Jones debated
whether the Society of St. Pius X is in schism due to the
unlawful episcopal consecrations of Archbishop Lefebvre on
June 30, 1988. Mr. Jones said YES; Mr. Davies argued NO. I was
fortunate enough to watch this debate on video tape not too
long ago. It is loaded with fireworks. I believe it was
evidently clear that Mr. Davies presented a more compelling
case. This doesn't mean, necessarily, that Davies' side is
right, but at least that Jones was not as good as arguing his
side as Davies was arguing his. Nevertheless, Jones wrote a
follow-up article, posted on the same page at TCR attacking
Michael Davies, entitled "How I Won the Debate (with Michael
Davies)." Now, I ask you: when a debater needs to compose an
entire article explaining how he won a debate, doesn't this
imply an admission of defeat? It seems Jones needed to write
this because it was not at all obvious at the time of the
debate that he had the better case. And indeed, it wasn't.
Michael Davies rested his case right there. He didn't need to
explain to people whether or how he won the debate--it was
obvious for all to see that he did.

I won't go through Jones' essay now. I think Davies pretty
much said everything that needed to be said in that debate.
The facts, I am thoroughly convinced, are on the side of Mr.
Davies.

To their credit, TCR appends a few things by Michael Davies
to their critique of him (for which reason, I think, Jones'
work was entirely misplaced there). Read them. Better yet,
read Davies' books and booklets. And make up your own mind. I,
for one, could not stand by silently as Davies was unjustly
attacked. There is no "fall" of Davies after all.